40+ students delegate to Pitzer HR to demand rehiring of DACAmented worker

On Sept. 27, more than 40 students accompanied Adan Campos in a delegation to  Pitzer Human Resources staff on the top floor of McConnell Dining Hall, to demand his rehiring. The students gave speeches in support of Adan and delivered a petition with more than 1,200 student signatures supporting his rehiring, collected over the past week.

Campos, a former chef of nine years, considered himself a part of the McConnell “family” before Bon Appetit Management Company fired him in February. At the time, his work authorization, which he had through the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program, was renewing.

But even after his authorization renewed, Pitzer refused to rehire him when he applied for open positions. On different occasions, Pitzer said that he was “overqualified”, that he would get “bored”, and that the position had already been filled through internal applications, contradicting a public job posting on LinkedIn, which Pitzer workers’ union contract stipulates can only be put up after Pitzer attempts to recruit internally, but cannot find a suitable applicant.

Earlier in the year, Campos’ coworkers gathered 70 signatures in support of his rehiring, and delivered a petition over the summer — but Campos still wasn’t given a fair chance to reapply.

At the delegation, Campos asked for a fair chance to reapply to work at McConnell.

“I am not asking you guys to break the contract, because I know that there’s a contract, just give me an opportunity to apply,” he said.

Students at the delegation spoke out against Pitzer’s apparent use of Campos’ DACA status to block him from the job.

“[This] is completely anti-immigrant behavior, that is language that is completely unsuitable and not in line with the values that this college claims to care about,” said Francisco Villaseñor PO ’25 at the delegation. “As students who have friends that are DACAmented and undocumented on this campus, it is disgusting that a member of the leadership on this campus would dare to try and use Adan’s legal status as a way to intimidate him or try to act as if he doesn’t deserve to be here.”

Other speakers emphasized Campos’ importance to the community.

“We’re here representing the 5C community. People are paying attention to … how you behave and act towards your workers and your community,” one student speaker said. “Adan has served and been a core part of Pitzer, and a core part of the 5Cs, as students go to all of the dining halls.”

Another speaker, a freshman from Scripps, emphasized the necessity for 5C students to engage with the broader 5C community and the unfair firing practices the delegation was opposing.

“In my orientation personally, I was told to keep out of this sort of thing, and to just focus on my studies. I want you to know that I wholly reject that, and so do so many other students, as you can see. We rely on these people day in, day out to feed us, and by proxy to deal with this kind of bullshit day in, day out without fail,” the speaker said.

As the delegation neared its end, student speakers told HR that the delegation was a part of a series of potential escalations until Campos would be able to work at Mcconnell Dining hall once again.

“We know that collective power between students and workers is how we get stuff done on this campus, and we’re going to keep reinforcing that,” Villaseñor said.